NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- A Clinton County man's passion for moving large stones has led him to a project in which he plans to move a more than 50-ton piece of Shawangunk conglomerate using only wood and rope tools, like the ancients did.

Rob Roy, director of Earthwood Building School in West Chazy, said he has long been curious about how ancient people moved the large stones like those seen at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. In 2002, he and a group of people used those ancient techniques to move and erect a 20-ton stone nicknamed "Juliesteyna." Now, Roy is directing the movement of a larger stone in what is being called "The Sophia Project."

"It came about because of my long passion with moving very large stones," Roy said by phone Friday. He said "Sophia" is a 32-foot, 5-inch long piece of orthroquartzite weighing an estimated 52 to 55 tons. It currently sits in a field at Stone Mountain Farm just north of New Paltz. Roy said Sophia came to his attention through Stephen and Robin Larsen of the Center for Symbolic Studies.

Roy said he plans to use a group of volunteers on Sunday, Sept. 22, to lift Sophia, utilizing wooden levers and rope.

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"We will need a lot of bodies, upwards of 60, to perform our tests and test our wooden equipment for strength," Roy wrote in an email. "About a year from now, after much planning and procurement of additional wooden and rope tools, we will move Sophia about 100 feet and stand her up as a great standing stone, or menhir. We will use only 'equipment' which would have been available to Neolithic (new Stone Age) peoples, wooden levers, fulcrums and stacking timbers and rope."

Roy said there is a cinematographer named Michael Barnes who is interested in filming the eventual move and standing of Sophia. The coming weekend's tests should help Barnes generate interest from television networks in that proposed documentary film, je added. Over the winter, plans for Sophia's actual move will be made, according to Roy. He said that, in August or September 2014, he and the volunteers can then demonstrate the move and standing of the stone.

Once it is eventually brought upright, Sophia will have 8 feet of stone buried in the ground, Roy said. He also said that Sophia is almost the same size as stone 56 at Stonehenge, which is the largest there.

Roy said he believes he has enough volunteers to help with next Sunday's test, but "it's better to have too many than too few." He is hoping to gather everyone at the sight by 10:30 a.m., he added, with the goal of lifting a portion of the stone by 11 a.m. The tests should take no more than two hours, Roy said.